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~That my boy will practice baseball for about 2 hours in the rain
before coming in soaked to the bone and grinning from ear to ear.

~The
way getting high fives and cheers for a big hit or a good play, makes
him cheer louder than anyone else for his teammates.

~How his sisters, who get very tired of watching little league, light up, giggle and bounce anxiously in their seats until they can congratulate him when he does well.

~The fact that my 7 year old, who only a short time ago would fall to pieces if he
lost or was wrong about almost anything, has learned that loosing is
part of the game and deals with it amazingly well. (Sometimes with 2 hour practice sessions in the rain.)

I'm always impressed at what kids can get done in the shortest bits of time. A call of, "we're leaving in 5 minutes!" is plenty of time to start one last game of make believe. 15 minutes waiting for mom to find the car keys, someone's missing
shoe and the bag of library books is plenty of time to create a
masterpiece with markers (with or without paper). And, that half hour or so before bed? Well, the possibilities are endless.

I have decided to take this lesson from my littles and try to squeeze more out of those bits of time I find sprinkled throughout the day. As it turns out, the time it takes to boil the water and steep my morning tea, is the perfect amount of time to unload the dishwasher. And on laundry day, I discovered that, apparently, the 58 minutes it takes for one load of
laundry to go through the washing machine is plenty of time to head to the nearby park for the
first, cold, swim of the season, find cool bits of seaweed, play
in the sand, enjoy a little reading, and then stroll through the park on our way back to the
car.

I feel like I've discovered a secret well of time, the ladle is small
and I only get a sip at a time but, with enough sips, who knows, maybe I'll
be able to write a blog post every now and then, or finish that quilt
I've been working on for 5 years now, or maybe, just maybe stock my etsy
shop that has been so neglected for so very long.

The possibilities are endless, but somehow I know that what will most likely come of this discovery is just a few more stories for my youngest who's growing way too fast, a few extra conversations dreaming and planning with my oldest, a few more cuddles on the couch with my chicken loving ballerina girl, and some extra games of catch with my sweet boy.

And of course, a few quick trips to the beach between the loads of laundry.

This past Christmas, I sorta gave my husband an ultimatum, Santa needs to build something cool, or I'm buying her this because my sweet baby girl has asked for nothing since we moved to this house (and got rid of the broken, 10 yr old, plastic one) except for her very own kitchen.

Well, Santa, could not have us spending money we don't really have and she was really, really good this year. He sure is amazing, that Santa, with all the other work he's gotta do, you know,
besides the Santa-ing, he really must be magic to have pulled this off.

And, I know for a fact, that he worked on this late at night, in a cold garage. It's perfect. And, she absolutely loves it.

So, the details.

The base was rescued from the discounted, damaged or returned cabinet pile at a local cabinet supplier. (Santa told me all about it, he knows how we like re-purposing things headed for the heap.)

One door was turned and a handle added for the stove. A ledge of wood scraps installed around the inside supports a cookie cooling rack for the oven rack.

A piece of oak routered and stained to match was placed on top, we originally thought we wanted it painted, to look like a counter top, but all that wood is just too pretty.

Custom, Santa built, shelving stained to match was attached to
the back of the cabinet, extending above, to hold all the pretty little
pots, pans and dishes.

The sink is a thrifted, stainless steel bowl that, my girl discovered Christmas morning, actually holds water so, I covered the entire thing with some of our leftover oil and beeswax mixture to save it from water stains. She doesn't seem to mind the missing faucet so, for now, it'll stay like this.

The legs are store bought and add just the right amount of height for our growing 4 year old and her big brother and sisters.